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Do we really want simplicity?

Everything today has to be simple, easy and fast. Even access to your bank account has to fit these adjectives and banks spend significant time and money trying to ensure their web and mobile interfaces are as easy to use as possible.

Of course, people still complain that they need to remember their password and that some banks have the gall to make you use a second factor when login in – like a PIN via SMS. Of course, these same people would be very angry if someone had to guess their password was ‘password’ and clean out their bank account. It would all be the bank’s fault.

The nice thing about simplicity is that it is simple. It makes it easy to do what we want. But leaving your front door open all night and forgetting to set the alarm at home is also simple, but we tend not to do that because we are aware of the potential consequences. Why is it that the consequences in the digital world are somehow not important?

With your digital identity, criminals can get up to endless mischief and cause any individual untold grief and hassles as they try to put their life back together after suddenly being told they have debts they have never heard of to pay. Remember when some people found out they were married to foreigners thanks to the honest people at Home Affairs?

When it comes to making coffee and warming your dinner, convenience in terms of easy and fast may be a good idea, but it’s time we realised that an extra step or two when it comes to security could prevent a lot of misery – whether it’s logging into your bank account online or physically signing up for a store account or to buy a new car.

It wasn’t that long ago that people on the street gave their passwords to strangers in return for a chocolate. How easily we fax or email a scan of our ID document or bank statements. How difficult we find it to memorise our banking password when it’s not ‘password’ or the dog’s (or the child’s) name?

How easy we make it for criminals to take advantage of us.

Hi-Tech Security Solutions wishes all our readers and partners a successful year ahead. May the profits be easy but your security impenetrable.

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